Card Games

Archive for the ‘Card Games’ Category

In his latest Design Diary blog post, Paizo’s Lead Adventure Card Game Designer Mike Selinker describes some of the adjustments gamers can expect in the revised edition of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Fans of the game should keep in mind the main game won’t be changing too dramatically – as Selinker stated, “we’re not making this a ‘second edition.’ Our goal isn’t to invalidate anything you have currently”. According to Selinker’s updates, the game is being redesigned to address several factors, including the goals of speeding up gameplay, adding control for varying difficulty, making the co-op game feel more cooperative, and perhaps most importantly, adding more story. Story is always king, so we applaud the notion of increasing influence of the source materials for PACG sets – namely, the Pathfinder RPG Adventure Paths. The new Core Set will be based on the Pathfinder Module The Dragon’s Demand, and the first Adventure Path being translated to the card game will be Curse of the Crimson Throne. If all goes as planned, the revised PACG Core Set should hit stores just before PaizoCon 2019 (so, May 2019).

The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design has announced their 2018 Origins Award nominees. There will also be Fan Favorite categories, voted on by attendees of the Origins Game Fair (as usual). Let’s peruse the list, shall we? Then, hurry and play all of them so you can make your predictions.

This year’s nominees for the Spiel des Jahres – Germany’s Game of the Year, a highly regarded title in tabletop gaming – have been announced, along with nominees for the Kennerspiel des Jahres (“Expert Game of the Year”, intended for game connoisseurs) and the Kinderspiel des Jahres (“Children’s Game of the Year”). Three titles were nominated for the main Spiel des Jahres award, with the winner to be announced soon:

Finally, a special prize was awarded to Pandemic: Legacy – Season 2, by Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau (Z-Man Games). The award was to acknowledge the “ingenious gameplay” against which “all future legacy games will have to be measured”.

On the day of it’s Kickstarter launch, Lars Roberts brings us a review of Goblin Grapple from Silver Gaming Company. A fantasy-themed card game of speedy combat, this Stratego-like design is perfect for playing a few rounds between longer games.

More than anything, watching the kids on Stranger Things obsess over their favorite games hits us with heavy nostalgia for those classic games of the 1980s. When you celebrate this modern classic of kids against the supernatural, whether you binge-watch entire seasons or savor each episode slowly, you’ll want an ideal activity to symbolize that you stand with the citizens of Hawkins, right? Don’t be a mouth-breather – grab your Eggos and your wrist-rocket, and check our picks for the best games to capture the feel of Stranger Things.(more…)

At Gen Con 50, the winner of this year’s Diana Jones Award for excellence in gaming has been announced as… Gen Con itself! First organized in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin by Gary Gygax himself, Gen Con has grown to become an annual gaming mecca and affirmation of the gaming hobby, currently raging onward in Indianapolis. Other nominees this year were The Beast, a single-player card & journaling game; End of the Line, a hybrid LARP combining Camarilla-style Vampire and Nordic LARP; the fantasy board game Gloomhaven, which was a huge hit on Kickstarter; The Romance Trilogy, a group of relationship-themed RPGs by Emily Care Boss (the first of which, Breaking the Ice, made it onto OgreCave’s 2005 Christmas Gift Guide); and Terraforming Mars, a resource management board game. As always, OgreCave congratulates all the nominees, and Gen Con, “The Best Four Days in Gaming,” for its win this year.

In this Gaming News Update interview, we throw new OgreCave contributor Lars Roberts to the wolves and have her interview Anna Meade, co-author of Uprising: The Dystopian Universe RPG from Evil Hat Productions. Due to hit Kickstarter for a 2018 publication date, Anna tells us about creating the roleplaying setting based on the card games Coup, Coup: Reformation, and The Resistance. She also hints at some confrontational – nay, backstabbing, even – mechanics to the FATE system that Uprising will bring to the table. As bonus features, Anna mentions her novelization of The Dystopian Universe for Indie Boards & Cards, her upcoming appearance as a featured presenter at Gen Con 50 next week, and what fun she’s had expanding tabletop gaming’s inclusivity and representation. Be sure to listen to Anna before attending her seminars next week, and browse our previous podcast episodes for many other game discussions.

Okay, the flood of KublaCon photos has reached its peak, and all are now neatly contained in OgreCave’s KublaCon 2017 photo gallery (over at our Facebook page). Final attendee count was reportedly 3,321 – a good sized show! See if you can spot yourself in our gallery, or rather, see if you got spotted by our photo crew.

We’re working on a few things behind the scenes, but as soon as we have goodies to share, we’ll serve them up. In the meantime, enjoy the pics, and tell us what you loved about this year’s KublaCon.

At Gen Con 2016, the winner of this year’s Diana Jones Award for excellence in gaming has been announced as prolific and impressive game designer Eric M. Lang. Lang is known as the man behind Chaos in the Old World, the Living Card Game versions of A Game of Thrones and Star Wars, and more recently for the elegant Ragnarok-themed board game Blood Rage. Other nominees this year were ConTessa, an organization; Fall of Magic, a story-game by Ross Cowman, published by Heart of the Deernicorn; Larpwriter Summer School; and Pandemic Legacy published by Z-man Games. OgreCave congratulates all the nominees, and Eric Lang for his award this year.

Diana Jones Award press release follows:

THE WINNER OF THE 2016 DIANA JONES AWARD IS ERIC M. LANG

To say that Eric Lang is a prolific game designer is the punchline of a joke hilarious in its understatement. This year’s Gen Con, for example, sees the release of no fewer than four new Lang designs or co-designs: Bloodborne: The Card Game, The Others: 7 Sins, Arcane Academy (with Kevin Wilson), and HMS Dolores (with Bruno Faidutti).

A small sampling of Lang’s past designs include Blood Rage, Dice Masters (with Mike Elliott), 2010 Diana Jones nominee Chaos in the Old World, and Living Card Game designs for A Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and Warhammer 40,000.

And these games are not sausage, vomited from an assembly line and rushed to market carelessly undercooked. Rather, Lang’s games are perennial inhabitants of lists that laud both evergreen sales and – in the parlance of BoardGameGeek – “Hotness.”

The variety and quality of Lang’s co-designers speak to the joy of collaborating with him. It’s telling that those who’ve worked with him in the past would not hesitate to do so again, whatever the project. The top-shelf media properties that Lang has adapted for the tabletop demonstrate the trust that publishers put in Lang’s insight, skill, and ability to deliver.

Lang’s ludography is worthy of celebration on its own, but Eric’s sincere love for games, gamers, the gaming hobby, and the art of game design are exemplars not only for his immediate peers, but for those who strive in literally any field of endeavor. If you ran marathons, or raised children, or played heavy metal music with the same spirit that Eric brings to game design, you would exemplify the best spirit of those callings, and the world would be better for it.

It is the opinion of the Diana Jones Award Committee that Eric Lang exemplifies excellence in gaming. We are proud to award him our trophy for this year.

Because we got some great footage at KublaCon 2015, we’re doing our best to ambush you with some of it (Flashback Friday, anyone?). We’ve included a general look at parts of the convention, but also managed to talk with Joseph Goodman of Goodman Games, as well as James Ernest of Cheapass Games. Some of what we discussed has hit game stores by now, but Joe and James both reveal some plans for the future. In particular, Joe describes new features of Dungeon Crawl Classics and his plans for Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar setting, while James tells us about the Kill Doctor Lucky Kickstarter campaign (which just started and runs until November 13th – check it out).

Around the Cave these past few months, Real Life (TM) has been busy, so gaming has suffered. But even hibernating ogres need to stretch, wake up, and hunt for good gaming now and then. To facilitate a good hunt for everyone, we have a new(ish) video from CelestiCon (going on this weekend in Fremont, CA. Okay, yeah, this is from the 2014 show – we’re way behind on posting this). Get a glimpse of this great convention for game enthusiasts of all varieties, listen to Luke Laurie from the League of Gamemakers talk of the League’s mission and CelestiSpiel, a haven for game developers to test game prototypes, and come out to the show this weekend if you can.

We’ve got a lot to say in the latest OgreCave Audio Report episode. First, we talk of DunDraCon 2015, wherein Allan describes some of the things he saw at the show. Then we hit Kickstarter hard, describing a variety of projects, both completed and upcoming, while voicing thoughts on what the crowdsourcing site should really be used for. Finally, one particular volunteer at PAX East is making the entire organization look bad, so they’d really better get a handle on the situation ASAP – and not by simply ignoring it.

Click here for show details and to listen to the new episode. Watch here soon for DunDraCon 2015 pictures, and everything else we’re up to as well.

In our first show of the new year, we’re already covering a lot of ground. In just the first half of the podcast, we go from Allan’s first impressions of Dungeons & Dragons: Fifth Edition to Mike’s obsession with space games, and back around to enjoying Magic: The Gathering after many years of abstinence. Then we drag out a pair of surprise gaming artifacts, speak of upcoming conventions, and more.

Click here for show details and to listen to the new episode. As always, share and enjoy. We’ll have a report on the happenings at DunDraCon 2015 in our next episode.